Desert Tidbits And Trading
Sep. 25th, 2012 03:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
madwriterTwo small cool Arizona-related items from the past few days:
I ran across a jigsaw puzzle of the San Francisco Peaks I assembled as a teenager, and realized that my trip this past June took me to the spot where the picture was taken.
I got an old eBay-purchased postcard yesterday of the Sonora Desert Museum near Tucson--not bad in itself, but the writing on the back indicated that the writer visited the museum on the day I was born.
One non-Arizona related item too: Today's mail brought me my copy of Christopher Paul Carey's Exiles of Kho. A book written by a friend set in a world created by my uncle definitely fits one of my definitions of cool.
Little things make me inordinately happy sometimes. Especially when I can read them.
PROGRESS REPORT
New Words: 2300 on chapter 7 ("The Scalphunters") of Arizona. The parlay with the Bedonkohe Apache only goes halfway as well as Finn hoped, and not at all the way Gian-nah-tah did, leading the warrior to make a very bad decision.
Total Words: 181200.
Reason For Stopping: I wrote all the way through to the point where I need to decide how to handle what comes next.
Book Year: 1833.
Mammalian Assistance: Vegas was waiting for me at the Writing Room door this morning.
Exercise: Walking Tucker around the neighborhood.
Stimulants: A glass-bottled sugar Coke.
Today's Opening Passage: The parlay with the Bedonkohe didn’t go as well as Finn hoped.
“We will not stop raiding,” Mahko told the trappers and his warriors as if announcing the much-needed rain was on its way—that their raiding was just as necessary and inevitable. Then he added, “But we will not kill the Alvarez Mexicans if we can avoid killing them.”
Darling Du Jour: There was another child in the wickiup, Taklishim’s son, only a year older at four. The boy who had looked so hard at the Americans. Neither had their names yet—they were too young for real naming, so both were Ish-kay-nay, Boy. But Taklishim’s son gazed with a long stare, making the younger boy aware that the older knew much, more more than him.
“My son and your son will learn together,” Taklishim declared, ordering them outside. He then ordered his son to pounce.
The younger boy sort of knew what was going on—they would train together, become warriors together someday. But why now? Why couldn’t they just leave him alone until he could figure out what happened to his father? Anger welled in him until it was uncontrollable fury that he used to target the older boy.
They wrestled, they fought, neither one gaining purchase, until Taklishim called for them to stop. The older boy did immediately, but Taklishim had to grab the younger to keep him from lunging again. “Enough,” Chief Mahko’s son told him. “You did well, used your anger without letting it blind you—until I told you to stop. You must learn to know when to fight, and when to not fight.” He locked the boy with a stare that seemed to make them the only two people in the world. “Your father is not here because he did not know when to stop fighting. Do you understand what I am saying?”
He did.
Non-Research / Review Books In Progress: Kelton; Sarmiento; A Long Way From Chicago by Richard Peck.
One non-Arizona related item too: Today's mail brought me my copy of Christopher Paul Carey's Exiles of Kho. A book written by a friend set in a world created by my uncle definitely fits one of my definitions of cool.
Little things make me inordinately happy sometimes. Especially when I can read them.
New Words: 2300 on chapter 7 ("The Scalphunters") of Arizona. The parlay with the Bedonkohe Apache only goes halfway as well as Finn hoped, and not at all the way Gian-nah-tah did, leading the warrior to make a very bad decision.
Total Words: 181200.
Reason For Stopping: I wrote all the way through to the point where I need to decide how to handle what comes next.
Book Year: 1833.
Mammalian Assistance: Vegas was waiting for me at the Writing Room door this morning.
Exercise: Walking Tucker around the neighborhood.
Stimulants: A glass-bottled sugar Coke.
Today's Opening Passage: The parlay with the Bedonkohe didn’t go as well as Finn hoped.
“We will not stop raiding,” Mahko told the trappers and his warriors as if announcing the much-needed rain was on its way—that their raiding was just as necessary and inevitable. Then he added, “But we will not kill the Alvarez Mexicans if we can avoid killing them.”
Darling Du Jour: There was another child in the wickiup, Taklishim’s son, only a year older at four. The boy who had looked so hard at the Americans. Neither had their names yet—they were too young for real naming, so both were Ish-kay-nay, Boy. But Taklishim’s son gazed with a long stare, making the younger boy aware that the older knew much, more more than him.
“My son and your son will learn together,” Taklishim declared, ordering them outside. He then ordered his son to pounce.
The younger boy sort of knew what was going on—they would train together, become warriors together someday. But why now? Why couldn’t they just leave him alone until he could figure out what happened to his father? Anger welled in him until it was uncontrollable fury that he used to target the older boy.
They wrestled, they fought, neither one gaining purchase, until Taklishim called for them to stop. The older boy did immediately, but Taklishim had to grab the younger to keep him from lunging again. “Enough,” Chief Mahko’s son told him. “You did well, used your anger without letting it blind you—until I told you to stop. You must learn to know when to fight, and when to not fight.” He locked the boy with a stare that seemed to make them the only two people in the world. “Your father is not here because he did not know when to stop fighting. Do you understand what I am saying?”
He did.
Non-Research / Review Books In Progress: Kelton; Sarmiento; A Long Way From Chicago by Richard Peck.
